“To be sure,” says I, and it did seem pretty clear after Mark reasoned it out, but I never would have got that far in six years of digging.
“So,” says Mark, “you and me will be at Center Line Bridge Friday n-n-night an hour ahead of t-t-time, so’s to hide away and overhear what’s up.”
“And probably git our backs busted,” says I.
“Hain’t n-never got ’em b-busted yet,” says he.
“All right, Mark,” I says. “Where you go I go, but one of these times neither one of us’ll be comin’ back in one piece. No, sir, we’ll be gettin’ scattered all over the county so our folks’ll have to gather us up in a basket.”
“B-b-between now and Friday,” says Mark, changing the subject, “there’s a n-newspaper to get out. Stop gabblin’ and go to work.”
Mark turned around to his desk and went to work. I stood around a minute and then, not seeing anything special to get at, I asked him what he wanted me to do.
“Go out and get some advertisin’,” says he, and went to work again.
Get some advertising, says he! I had about as much idea how to get advertising as I had how to catch eels with my bare hands—and I found out that advertisements were just about as easy to catch as eels. Yes, and maybe a little harder. If you try to catch an eel, why, he just wriggles away, but if you try to catch an advertisement the man you try to catch it from is as likely as not to kick you out of his store. I don’t see why ads. aren’t catching, like measles or mumps. It would make it a heap easier for us newspaper men.
Anyhow, all the business I managed to get was a miserable little advertisement from old man Crane, who had started to grow whiskers and wanted to trade a safety razor for a brush and comb. It was a cent a word and there were fifteen words. I didn’t see exactly how we were going to get rich at that rate.